Well I, for one, have NEVER piddled! I've urinated, micturated, peed, pissed, passed water, took a leak, drained the lizard, and pointed Percy at the porcelain. When I was young I pee-peed, tee-teed or wee-weed, depending on whose house I happened to be in at the time. I've also fired a few rounds from the heat-seaking moisture missile, though I'm not sure that's the same thing. But piddled? Nope.

That's why I call them "diddlers". They're out in the yard yelling at the neighborhood and I yell out the window at them, "Shut up, you diddlers!" to amuse myself. It only spurs them on to greater vocal efforts. They probably think that I am yelling encouragement.

Don't know much about dachshunds but I got a nice cool down today when I gave my dogs each a bath. It consisted of standing in the yard with the hose and a bottle of shampoo. I also had two towels. In 95 degree weather they don't NEED to be towel dried, but it is always their favorite part of a bath, so I "dry them off" even if they're outside and will air dry in no time at all. I hold the towel and they dive in head first for that whole head and neck rub that they adore.

So true. I would not have had them fixed were it up to me. They were both "fixed", sadly, prior to their arrival in this household, both having been adopted from previous owners who could not keep them for one reason or another. I don't think either one knows what he is missing. It's unfortunate, because one of them, Finnegan, would surely have been as randy as Bill Clinton if he still had the necessary equipment.

Hey, MOM, the mustang grapes are ripe! I picked a couple of gallons this morning and got a couple of quarts of juice. I'm going to make jelly this week. These grape vines grow on a big tree across the road from my house.

Mom, I went down to the SHores again, just as daylight started rising. I was launched in my compact yellow shell by 6, and I wnt along the waters close by the caves that dot the bluffs just seaward of La Jolla. I went into one cave, ducked though a water-formed arch and came out of another. I traced the shoreline out to the point and took off for the outer edges of the kelp, and strove northerly., Two doplhins raised up in the water about ten and twenty yards ahead, and slicked quietly back into the water, making their way somewhere known only to them. Along the coasts, large flocks of pelicans and rookeries of cormorants exist; at the hour they have not started their patrols, and look very stately, except for being surrounded by guano.

Along the long stretch north past the Scripps Oceanographic institute, I paused in complete stillness, listening to the bubbles. I was sirprised to hear a deep whoofing snore where no such snore should be. I stared closely at the broadleaf kelp floating at the edge of the great kelp forest and under one leaf I saw two large brown eyes staring out at me, just above the surface. It was a harbor seal, pausing in his morning pursuits to investigate the passer-by in the yellow-bellied boat.

Out on the belly of the PAcific, there are things going on below you that of course you know nothing of; but when the predators are in motion, one way you can tell is the nervous leapings of the tiny anchovies along the surface. Usually tey make little flips of a few inches, one at a time here and there, making tiny ripples and causing a fr-r-r-p!! sound. But when the shoal is threatened, scores or even hundreds will come frrrping and flopping along the surface, densely enough to make a wide band of water turn silver and white in the midst of a slate-blue sea. I paddled through two such shoals on my way up the coast and back.

It was a long hard paddle. As I came back down the coast to my usual landing area and moved in close enough to be picked up on the back of an incoming wave moving toward the sand, the water shifted from gray-blue to green and clear, and as I coasted over the shallows I saw four leopard sharks--little dogfish-lie critters about 3 feet long -- scouring along the bottom. They are called "leopard" because of their strange tawny-greenish skins, dappled with black spots. Then the wave picked me up and I had only the attention for keeping her straight as it carried me like an arrow through the shallows and back onto to the shore.

A long morning, started on a night short of sleep. I got everything cleaned up and put away, back home, and crashed for three hours.

Actually, I think these fingerlings are not anchovies, but grunion. The f-r-r-rp sound is the sound of them leaping and splishing back into the water after a leap of one or two inches. No wind is damaged in the course of this experience. It is wonderful when a whole school start doing it at the same time.

Ya know, boys, I try to write something a little inspirational and up-scale here, and you two just want to make methane jokes. This is really discouraging. I have half a mind to make you both read Pilgrim's Progress from front to back. It's the best way.

Hi, Mom! A really big tree just fell down in my yard! It used to be the biggest tree on our property, but it died about five years ago. It had shed most of its limbs over the years, so it was really nothing but a trunk about 60 feet tall. The last five feet or so caught the roof of our pottery studio on the way down, but it (the tree, not the studio) was so rotten it didn't do any damage. Still, choppin' it up in this heat and humidity is not going to be fun.

Chopping? Remember them chain saws you bought for one of them hurrycanes a couple years ago? Use them. This time put gas in 'em and pull on the rope and don't be scared by the loud noise; that's the way they're supposed to work.

Why is it these big tasks come along when it's really really hot out? I have several yard-related jobs I'd really like to finish before school starts, but we're hovering at 100 every day now and for the next six weeks at least. Forget the potting shed and the other trees, you could light a fire under the recumbent stump and move it along in a hurry.

On thing, though. You might want to what Shane would do--claim it was a lightning strike (and keep the ignition source discreet.)

Or do what I do: snakehole it, shove in eight or ten sticks of 60% dynamite, and tell the cops it must have been a mis-aimed artillery shell from whatever military base is closest. That way you and your neighbors (if any) can sue the Dept. of Defense.

I'm afraid there will be no burning of this particular massive bole. It's been dead for so long that it's already 50% compost. I'll probably just cut what parts of it are still more or less solid into manageable chunks, pile them up someplace out of the way, and let Mom's cousin, Mother Nature, finish the job of turning them into future garden soil.

I'll sorta miss the old eyesore since it was a favorite hunting ground for our resident red-bellied woodpeckers and I could watch them from the window beside my computer. Earlier this spring I also noticed that a couple of beetle-killed pines 100 yard or so away from the house had fallen down at some point. They were occasional perches for various hawks and kites, so they'll be missed a bit as well.